The ROI of CAD Security: Calculating the Cost of a Data Breach

For engineering teams, CAD security is often treated like overhead. It should be treated like loss prevention.

The ROI is easier to see when you calculate what a breach can actually cost. IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach 2024 reported the global average breach cost at $4.88 million. That number includes downtime, recovery, legal exposure, and lost business, but for CAD teams, the stakes are even higher: stolen IP, corrupted assemblies, halted releases, and broken trust with customers and suppliers.

Real cases make the risk concrete. After a 2019 cyberattack, Norsk Hydro said the incident cost about NOK 650 million (roughly $70 million USD at the time) in lost margin and recovery expenses. In 2023, MGM Resorts disclosed that its cyberattack had a negative EBITDA impact of about $100 million. Those weren’t “IT problems.” They became business problems fast.

Now apply that logic to a CAD environment. What is the cost of one day without access to your vault, drawings, revisions, or release workflows? What is the cost of recreating lost design work? What is the cost if a competitor, supplier, or threat actor gets access to sensitive product data?

That is why security is not just an expense. It is insurance against downtime, IP loss, and operational disruption. The right investment in backup, access control, monitoring, patching, and recovery protects revenue, engineering velocity, and your competitive advantage.

A free cybersecurity audit from Converge can help you identify hidden risks in your CAD environment before they turn into costly downtime, data loss, or IP exposure.

Sources: IBM Cost of a Data Breach 2024; Norsk Hydro Annual Report (2019 cyberattack impact); MGM Resorts International 2023 SEC disclosures.